Nutrition & Health
Nutrition
Due to the high poverty rates in Zambia, in addition to the other hardships they must face, many children also have to deal with malnutrition. Besides the obvious health complications that accompany malnutrition, studies show that malnourished students perform poorly in school due to the effects that malnutrition has on the brain and the body.
Lunch Program
In order to ensure our students are receiving the nourishment they need; we provide our students in Livingstone with lunch Monday’s - Friday’s when school is in session. The lunch we provide consists of Nshima (which is the local Zambian cuisine) with vegetables from Mondays - Thursdays and we provide peanut butter sandwiches with juice on Fridays and Saturdays. The students who attend Extra Lessons in the morning eat lunch when they finish their lessons, and the students who attend Extra Lessons in the afternoon eat lunch as soon as they arrive at Extra Lessons. FHCI's Project Coordinators who are in charge of teaching Extra Lessons communicate with the students’ parents/guardians to ensure that the cooking schedule runs smoothly. Each student's parent/guardian is required to help prepare lunch for the students at Extra Lessons one week each term.
Our students outside of Livingstone, who attend boarding school in Kazungula and Zimba, are provided with meals at school, the cost of which is included in their boarding fees. While all of the students in our Sponsorship Program are vulnerable, nineteen of our twenty-two boarding school students are extremely vulnerable (many of these students prior to entering boarding school were homeless, abandoned by their parents, living in extremely abusive situations, etc.). For these nineteen students we spend an extra K1,000 (approximately $60) per term per child ($180 per year per child) on additional food to supplement their diet. The food that they are fed at school is the bare minimum so we provide them with cereal, snacks, juice, and other food that they can eat while they study to keep their energy levels up.
Delevu Village Breakfast Program
In 2021 a volunteer from Europe heard about our organization and contacted us to ask if we could set up a program to provide breakfast Monday through Friday for the sixty students who attend preschool in a rural village (which lies approximately eighteen kilometers east of Livingstone). She agreed to fund the program and in October 2021 we began facilitating the Breakfast Feeding Program. For breakfast the students eat porridge with ground nuts and bananas. We also organized a Christmas lunch of rice, chicken, vegetable salad, juice, crisps, and sweets for the students in December. The Breakfast Feeding Program runs every month that school is in session. On average this program provides 1,000 meals a month.
The average person
spends $300 every month on
dining out. A village school in
Zambia requires only $60 to
provide over 1,000 meals to its
students every month.
Drought Relief Program
Since the beginning of 2024, Zambia has been suffering from a severe drought, the worst in the country’s existence. The majority of crops have failed and food prices have quadrupled as a result. Many families can no longer afford to feed themselves.
With the support of the Trinity Institute, a private Catholic foundation, FHCI began supporting these families by providing them with essential food supplies every month. So far, over 200 families are benefiting from the program.
Through this initiative, we are also providing food supplies to the DeSanto Center for the Deaf and the Maramba Old People’s Home so that they can feed their clients.
There are still many more families and institutions that could use support during this difficult time. You can make a donation to our Emergency Food Fund below and make sure no one has to go hungry!
Holiday Feeding Program
In addition to providing the students with lunch, and the boarding school students with snacks, we also provide them with food on special occasions. At the end of every year we host a Christmas Party where we serve the students a special Christmas meal along with homemade Christmas cookies! We also provide the community members with lunch when we host community workshops and empowerment group meetings. In addition to this, we also provide lunch and juice to students during Impact sessions followed by a celebration at the end of their course with a variety of snacks and drinks!
Health
HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, Malaria and other diseases/infections are among the top ten causes of death in Zambia. Since many of our students and their families have chronic health conditions we decided to add a health component to our organization in order to meet their health and medical needs. Over a quarter of the families that we serve are HIV positive. Our team periodically follows up with these families to make sure they are able to access their medication and to see if they have any other health needs that need to be met.
Several of the girls in our Sponsorship Program, in addition to being dedicated students, are also young mothers. We check in with them at least once a term to ensure that they and their child(ren)are healthy and thriving.
In addition to ensuring that our student's physical health needs are met, we also provide mental health counseling to make sure that their mental health needs are met. At the start of the 2024 school year we hired a full-time Mental Health Counselor that provides individualised support to our students wherever needed.
